The Davis Enterprise Sunday, June 25, 2023

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Aggie stories

UC Davis photos

Tanishq Abraham rings the ceremonial bell in Graduate Studies to signify he has earned his doctorate.

By Julia Ann Easley Enterprise staff wrter

UC Davis celebrated commencement last week. Meet eight of UCD’s graduating students with special stories: a graduate student who completed his doctoral degree while still age 19, the University Medalist, a 48-year-old fulfilling a promise to his parents, and the five student speakers for the undergraduate commencement.

Doctorate at age 19

Tanishq Mathew Abraham,

20, of Sacramento graduated with a doctorate of biomedical engineering — completed this spring while he was still 19 — at the Graduate Studies commencement. His sister, Tiara Abraham, was set to the national anthem at Thursday’s ceremony. She earned a bachelo’s degree in music from UC Davis last year when she was 16 and is a now a master’s student at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington.

After earning three associate degrees from American River

College, 13-year-old Tanishq started studies as a transfer student at UC Davis in fall 2016. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree summa cum laude in biomedical engineering in June 2018 and began doctoral studies that fall. His research has focused on using generative AI in microscopy and pathology. Tanishq is the founding CEO of the medical AI research center MedARC, through which he collaborates with researchers from around the world. He is author of academic papers and a book chapter, and he has won

California child care providers demand raises as budget deadline looms

Jeanne Kuang

Special to The Enterprise

Gabriela Guerrero’s children are all grown and have moved out, but the former stay-at-home mom never stopped raising kids.

multiple honors and awards.

Student speaker

Celia Sophia Mares de Juan of Guadalajara, Mexico, graduated with a bachelor’s degree in international relations and sociology — organizational studies, with a minor in human rights. A peer advisor helping fellow students with global learning opportunities, she conducted her own research on the motivations that minority

See STORIES, Page A5

Legislation aims to protect smoke-hit vineyards

Enterprise staff

WASHINGTON — Reps. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, and Dan Newhouse, R-Wash, and Sens. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., introduced bipartisan, bicameral legislation for wine grape crop loss coverage. The bill requires the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) to carry out research and implement a crop insurance product that covers losses due to smoke exposure.

“Wine grapes are essential to economies across our country, and states like California, Oregon and Washington have been disproportionately exposed to wildfires leading to smoke exposure impacting our wine grapes,” said Thompson. “Researching the impact that smoke has on our wine grapes and other crops is

essential in advancing solutions that will protect these key economic drivers from future natural disasters. Proud to work with Rep. Newhouse and Sen. Padilla to introduce legislation that strengthens crop insurance for winegrowers and helps fully capture the risks associated with growing in these smoke- and wildfire-prone states.”

“Washington state’s wine industry produces some of the best wine in the nation and we need to keep it that way. Right now, the industry faces billions of dollars in losses from wildfires and smoke exposure. I am proud to co-sponsor this critical legislation that will ensure our wine grape growers and producers get the necessary funding to be resilient and continue to produce high-quality wine,” said Newhouse.

“As climate change intensifies and wildfires become more frequent and extreme, we need to protect wine-grape growers and consumers against the damage caused by prolonged smoke exposure. Wine-grape-growing regions are critical to our economy, especially in California. Growers, vintners, and consumers alike have a stake in the sustainability of winegrowing communities — these bills will help growers make informed decisions about harvesting and selling their crops,” said Padilla.

“Washington state is the second-largest wine producing state in the country, creating thousands of jobs and fueling tourism across the state,” Murray SAID.

“Washington is also seeing an alarming increase in wildfires

See SMOKE, Page A5

The children who attend her home daycare in El Centro, in Imperial County near the Mexico border, are as young as 3 months old. Some are the children of farmworkers who drop them off at Guerrero’s house before their shifts in the pre-dawn hours. Nearly all are from families poor enough to qualify for state subsidies.

Many of the families can’t afford basic needs, Guerrero said, so the 57-year-old makes sure to provide their children with milk, diapers and sometimes clothes.

“I want the families to go to work knowing that (their children are) well taken care of, and they’re being loved and fed correctly,” she said.

Guerrero’s labor of love barely earns her a living. After paying two assistants and other costs, she figures she takes home about $3 or $4 an hour. She takes on credit card debt to keep her business going.

For years family child care providers — the vast majority of them women of color — have said they don’t get paid enough by the state of California to cover the costs of their businesses. Their fight for better pay and benefits, a two-decades-old effort, is reaching a fever pitch in California’s capital this year.

They’re pressing Gov. Gavin Newsom to raise their pay, and they have the Legislature on their side. Lawmakers put $1 billion for raises in their version of a state budget that they passed last week. That funding remains one of the key differences between Newsom and the Legislature as they hammer out a budget deal before July 1 that accounts for an estimated $32 billion deficit.

The full cost of California child care Newsom deemed the child care industry critical to getting parents back to work and recovering the state’s economy from the pandemic. He signed legislation in 2019 allowing home child care providers like Guerrero to unionize and bargain

See CARE, Page A5

Student speaker Celia Sophia Mares de Juan.

Briefly Construction closing Chiles

Paving work associated with the new apartment complex at 3820 Chiles Road will require a temporary closure of Chiles Road (alternating eastbound and westbound) from Ensenada Drive to east of La Vida Way to the Dave Pelz Overcrossing for approximately three weeks, starting Monday, June 26. Traffic for the closed lane will be detoured to Cowell Blvd.

Work hours are Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Expect construction noise and dust. “No parking” barriers will go up 72 hours ahead of project time.

For questions, contact city of Davis principal civil engineer Kevin Fong at kfong@cityofdavis.org or, for urgent questions, Jacob Snyder of Brown Construction at jsnyder@brownconstruction.com or at 530-269-3506.

Sing with Sacred Harp

Sacred Harp (aka "shape note") will host a community sing, from 3 to 5 p.m. Saturday, July 1, at 345 L St. Beginners and listeners are welcome.

The event, participatory sing with a capella four-part harmony is free and open to the public.

Air purifiers will be in use. Participants should be fully vaccinated. A COVID test before coming is recommended.

About us

Walking the walk and chalking the chalk

Afew weeks back during the discussion in our town about painting crosswalks in the colors of the rainbow, a group of individuals suggested they might wish to paint cross walks red, white and blue come the 4th of July.

The response from officialdom was that these were not necessar ily co-equal acts, citing "Respect for the Flag" under Title 4, Chapter 1, Section 8 of the United States Code.

The thought being that having cars drive over a chalk depiction of the American flag or even simply the three colors of the flag would be disrespectful.

Obviously, that's a bit of a stretch for a variety of reasons. After all, if painting crosswalks with bright and beautiful colors that cars also drive over is deemed a sign of respect, how can driving over a red, white and blue crosswalk be a sign of disrespect?

The Flag Code, of course, has no force of law despite its pages and pages of rules and regulations that in reality are merely recommendations.

I have no interest in disrespecting the American flag. I regularly stand and put my hand over my heart when the National Anthem is played before basketball and football games. I do this out of respect for my dad and his fellow soldiers who fought so valiantly

for this country and all it stands for in World War II and for all who have followed them in uniform.

Still, I have no problem with those who decline to stand for whatever reason they may hold. It's a free country. My dad and his buddies fought for them too.

I do find it amusing in this gender-conscious world that public address announcers in introducing the Star Spangled Banner still say, "Will gentlemen please remove their hats." I suppose I'd go along with that, but I've never owned a hat, except in Little League.

The Pledge of Allegiance is a bit trickier, given that it asks me to "Pledge allegiance to the flag," when my first and only allegiance should be to God. However, I do like the part about "Liberty and justice for all," which unfortunately seems more like a wish than a reality at this point in our nation's history.

Even famed Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia knew that

respect for the flag should be an aspiration, not a law.

Speaking at Princeton University a decade ago, Scalia famously said, "If it were up to me, I would put in jail every sandal-wearing, scruffy-bearded weirdo who burns the American flag, but I am not king."

Earlier, Scalia was the fifth and deciding vote in the Texas v. Johnson decision that held that flag burning was symbolic speech, political in nature, that could be expressed in public and was protected by the First Amendment. In other words, he upheld the Constitution even as it allowed for an act he found personally abhorrent.

If officialdom in Davis feels painting or chalking a sidewalk red, white and blue in honor of the Fourth of July is problematic, it may be time for everyone to read the Flag Code for other common signs of disrespect.

"The flag should never be used as wearing apparel." (Section 8, d.) Oh my goodness, how many times have I seen that?

"The flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever or impressed on paper napkins designed for temporary use and discard." Again, how many times have I seen that?

"No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or

athletic uniform."

All violators are expected to turn themselves in at City Hall before high noon on Friday.

And finally, "The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way," - wait for it - "preferably by burning."

I scoured the Flag Code to see if there was a rule against using a flagpole with the American flag attached as a spear to attack Capitol Police officers in Washington, D.C., but such an act was not specifically mentioned, so it's apparently OK.

If a group wishes to paint some of our crosswalks red, white and blue to honor the Declaration of Independence, so be it.

Once a governmental body honors a group of people or a point of view by allowing a prominent display on city property, it has opened the door to having other points of view expressed on city property as well. And it doesn't matter if one point of view is shared by 95 percent of the public and the other point of view is held by only a few.

Indeed, as our cherished National Anthem proudly proclaims, we are indeed the Land of the Free.

May it ever be so.

— Reach Bob Dunning at bdunning@davisenterprise.net.

Local author Fallon O’Neill visits Avid Reader

place

Thursday, June 29,

to 7:30 p.m. at its downtown Davis store, 617 Second Street. For more information or to purchase the book, visit us at our website: avidreaderbooks.com

Diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome at a young age, O’Neill has been writing since his sophomore year of high school. These scribblings and vignettes would eventually become the earliest drafts of his debut novel, “Geist:

Bayer Fund grant backs

STEAC

Special to The Enterprise

STEAC, the Short Term Emergency Aid Committee, announced today it received a grant for $10,000 from Bayer Fund, a philanthropic arm of Bayer in the U.S. In line with Bayer Fund’s mission, this grant will be used towards building a better future by supporting STEAC’s Feeding the Hungry Program.

“Exacerbated by the pandemic, hunger and homelessness continue to be a serious issue for many Yolo County residents. The number of individuals and children served by STEAC has risen close to 40% compared to pre-pandemic levels. And, we provided food to approximately four times the number of unhoused individuals,” stated Liane Moody, Executive Director of STEAC.

In our mutual goal to see the communities we serve flourish, this grant from Bayer Fund will support our organization by allowing us to continue serving a growing demand. In addition to serving food insecure members of the general public, STEAC’s Feeding the Hungry Program in particular helps children, seniors and the unhoused.

“Through Bayer Fund’s giving, we’re enabling and strengthening organizations that are working to make real, sustainable impacts,” said Al Mitchell, President of Bayer Fund.

Prelude.” Dedicated and passionate, Fallon has worked his novels with the Blue Moon Writer’s Group for over seven years, culminating in winning second place at the Will Albrecht Young Writers Competition of 2012, and publication in the eighth issue of the Blue Moon Art And Literary Review. His favorite pastimes include grabbing a beer (or four) at the local bar, blasting soundtracks into his skull, and watching German movies from the ‘20s to keep the existential dread at bay.

In the book, the gears of revolution turn once more. Striking from the slums of

Holy Gothica, the Powder Kegs have stolen a set of battle plans from the Imperium, offering themselves as pawns in a far greater scheme. The rebel leader, Goro Ludwig, follows orders from the Entente of Free Peoples, a rival power bent on toppling the Imperium’s tyrannical rule.

Meanwhile, Victor Roland languishes in a life devoid of purpose. It has been a month since the Dollmaker’s death. Addled by grief and guilt, he wastes his days drinking at the Sunset Pagoda, mulling over the implications of taking a human life, as the Imperium mobilizes for

war. Only the initiative of his friends stir him to a cause he partly cares about.

Joining the Powder Kegs, Victor agrees to deliver the data plans to the Entente. If he fails, the free world will be reduced to ash and brimstone. For the Imperium’s secret weapon is

nothing short of evil he’s long fought—the very daemons of the Inferno …

This is the fourth book of the Geist series. Join Victor in his race against time, as he trudges across wastelands and war zones, in a wider world on the brink of war.

Make clouds at home with this experiment

By Sara Thompson Special to the Enterprise

Clouds form when water vapor in the air begins to condense. This happens when the air is oversaturated with water vapor or when the air cools and goes beyond its dew point.

Just like condensation on the ground, aerial water vapor needs something to condense on.

Clouds are formed when water vapor condenses around dust particles in the air. There are a couple of different ways you can make a cloud in a jar at home.

For the first method you need a glass jar with a lid, hot water, ice cubes and hairspray. Begin by heating about 1/3 cup of water; you want it hot but not boiling. Pour the water into the jar and swirl around a little bit so the sides of the jar heat up. Place the lid of the jar, upside-down on top of the jar. Inside the “dish” of the jar lid, place several ice cubes.

Let everything sit for about 30 seconds, then gently lift the lid off the jar, spray some hairspray into the jar, then quickly replace the lid with the ice still on it. A cloud should form quickly in the

explOrit science center

jar now.

How does this happen? Some of the initial hot water evaporated and turned into water vapor and rose to the top of the jar. When it comes into contact with the cooler air caused by the ice in the lid, it will condense, but has nothing to cling to until the hairspray is added to the system. The particles in the hairspray give the water vapor a surface to condense onto, forming the cloud in the jar.

Another method uses a glass jar, matches, hot water, a balloon with the narrow end cut off, and a flashlight. Again, begin by heating water enough to be hot but not boiling.

Add enough water to fill the jar about a half inch, or pinky finger width. Light a match and hold it near the mouth of the jar so some of the smoke enters, then drop the match in the jar or remove it to a safe location to extinguish. Quickly stretch the balloon over the mouth of the jar to cover it. Next, gently push a finger onto the balloon, pushing

A cloud-in-a-jar experiment in action.

it slowly into the jar. You do not want the balloon to come off the sides of the jar, but just the center being pressed inwards.

When you are ready, release your hand and a cloud should start to form inside the jar. You might need a flashlight to see it better. How does this happen? With this method you are changing the air pressure within the jar. Just like the first one, when you added the hot water, some of it turned to water vapor.

cOm image

When you pressed down onto the balloon, you increased the pressure in the jar, slightly warming the air. When you released the balloon, the pressure dropped and the temperature cooled. The cooler air caused the water vapor to condense on the smoke from the match, forming the cloud.

Which method worked better for you? Whether you did one or both, making clouds is simply causing water vapor to condense

onto tiny particles in the air, both at home and in the sky.

Explorit's coming events:

n Visit our exhibit “Explorit Rocks!” It’s open to the public on Fridays from 1to 4 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Admission is $5 per person. Explorit Members, ASTC, and those age 2 and under free.

n Missed Big Day of Giving? No problem, any time is a great time to donate and help Explorit continue to educate and inspire the scientists of tomorrow: https://www.explorit.org/ donate.

n A membership to Explorit grants the recipient free visits to Explorit’s regular public hours, discounts on events, summer camps and workshops, and gives you ASTC benefits to visit other museums throughout the world. To purchase or for more information visit https://www.explorit.org/membership or call Explorit at 530-756-0191.

— Explorit Science Center is at 3141 Fifth St. For information, call 530-756-0191 or visit http:// www.explorit.org, or "like" the Facebook page at www.facebook. com/explorit.fb.

Poetry Reading Series returns to roof of downtown gallery

Enterprise staff

The Poetry Night Reading Series will feature Erin Rodoni and Paul Aponte at 7 p.m. Thursday, July 6, on the roof of the John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 Firt St. in Davis.

Rodoni is the author of “Body, in Good Light” and A Landscape for Loss, which was selected by Tony Barnstone as the winner of the 2016 Stevens Award sponsored by the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. Her third

Obituaries

collection, “And if the Woods Carry You” won the 2020 Southern Indiana Review Michael Waters Poetry Prize. Her poems have been published in Best New Poets 2014, Blackbird, Colorado Review, Poetry Northwest, The Adroit Journal and Verse Daily, among others. She has also been honored with awards from AWP and Ninth Letter, as well as The Montreal International Poetry Prize.

Erin was born and raised in Point Reyes and holds a bachelor’s degree from UC

Shannon Peterson Callahan

Dec. 14, 1983 – May 8, 2023

Shannon Peterson Callahan (39), wife, mother and instructor at Sonoma State University, died on May 8, 2023, at the UC Davis Medical Center, just five weeks after being diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer.

Shannon is survived by her husband of five years, Landon Christensen; son Lewis Christensen (3); mother Ellen Peterson; sister Megan Callahan (Christopher Sierzchula); nephews Paxton (9) and

Xander (6); Landon’s parents, Lynn and Laura Christensen; brother-inlaw Gary Christensen; and sister-in-law Katie Manzer and her family.

Shannon was born in Woodbridge, NJ. Growing up she enjoyed playing trombone with the school band, acting, choir, soccer, and future problem solving.

Shannon received her Ph.D. from UC Davis and taught social psychology at

Marian Rae Fargo

d. June 3, 2023

Marian Rae (Kronick) Fargo passed away peacefully on June 3, 2023, just shy of her 95th birthday.

Her life was celebrated at a family gathering which included her children, Laurel Sousa (Frank) of Davis, former Sacramento Mayor Heather Fargo (Alan Moll), and Dan Fargo (Diana) of Columbia, S.C.; as well as extended family Natalie and

Berkeley and an MFA from San Diego State. She teaches at the Writing Salon in San Francisco and serves on the board of the Marin Poetry Center. She lives in San Rafael with her husband and two daughters. Aponte is a Chicano poet from Sacramento. He is a member of the writers group Escritores Del Nuevo Sol, and also a board member of Círculo De Poetas & Writers. He has been published in the Tecolote Press anthology “Poetry In

Flight,” Sacramento Poetry Center's quarterly Poetry

Now, Un Canto De Amor A Gabriel Garcia Márquez (a publication from the country of Chile containing poems from around the world with 31 countries represented), in the anthology “Soñadores — We Came To Dream,” in La Bloga — a Los Angeles online publication, and in the Los Angeles Review Volume 20 — Fall 2016. His poetry and photography were featured as the “editor's choice” in the

online journal Convergence, and now has a new book out in 2023 called DEL CACTUS available through Prickly Pear Press and Amazon.com.

An open mic will follow the featured performers. Open mic performances will be limited to three minutes or two items, whichever is shorter. The open mic list typically fills by 6:50 p.m., so please arrive early if you would like to perform something during the 8 o’clock hour.

Attendees who request to

be added to the list after 7 p.m. will be invited to try again at a subsequent event.

The Facebook event page is at https://www.facebook. com/events/ 1338365973760559/ Find out more about the Poetry Night Reading Series in Davis, California by visiting http://www. poetryindavis.com. To learn more about Dr. Andy’s tiny media fiefdom, check out his weekly podcast at https://poetrytechnology.buzzsprout.com/.

numerous colleges, including UC Davis and Sonoma State University. There will be a celebration of life at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Davis on Saturday, July 8. Details are available at this Everloved memorial website: https:// everloved.com/life-of/ shannon-callahan/ Guests are asked to RSVP.

Mark Greenfield, and David, Keiko and Sarah Golden. Also remembering her are grandchildren Marianna, Emily, Beatrice Akers (Ryan), Frank (Jessica), Dan (Caroline) and Matthew (Eilidh). Her greatgrandchildren honor her memory as well: Carl, Victor and Isadora of Davis, and Cecily and Flora of London, England.

She was predeceased by her parents Morris and Bertha Kronick, her sister Jackie and her husband of 60 years, Frank.

CALLAHAN

Infants learn to float at new business

There’s a new business in Davis that teaches babies skills that could keep them from drowning. Davis resident Alexandra “Pandi” Chorey runs Davis ISR, which stands for Infant Swimming Resource.

“ISR believes in multiple layers of defense against aquatic accidents, which include pool fences, alarms and active adult supervision,” according to the national Infant Swimming Resource website https://www. infantswim.com/. “However, traditional lines of defense break down, and the over 4,000 drowning deaths per year bear a grim testament.”

The company says kids can be a key part of drowning prevention. “Children are curious, capable and have an uncanny ability to overcome obstacles like pool fences.” ISR teaches them skills to potentially save themselves if they end up alone in the water.

Chorey said she had a neardrowning experience at age 3, leaping into the deep end of a pool to be with her older sister. A family friend jumped in to save her. Drowning is leading cause of accidental death for children ages 0 to 4, the ISR website states. She teaches these one-on-one lessons in her East Davis backyard pool. It typically takes six to eight weeks of 10-minute lessons – five days a week – for a child to learn the skills. Short review courses are suggested each year.

“These are really quick lessons but it’s in the repetition that the children learn the self-rescue skills,” Chorey said. Babies –from 6 months to toddlers – are taught to roll onto their back and float. Children 2 to 8 learn a “swim-float-swim” technique.

Some of the lessons are done in clothes rather than swimsuits.

“Most drownings occur when children are fully clothed,” she said. The final sessions are done in summer and winter clothing, “to show them that their skills still work.”

Reach Chorey by email at alexandra.chorey@infantswim.com.

It appears that Bones Craft Kitchen will not reopen. It closed after the May 24 death of its owner, Chris Jarosz, 55, in a Highway 50 vehicle crash.

I’ve learned that the restaurant’s employees are being told that it’s closed for good.

Bones, at 113 D St., opened in June 2022. Jarosz also had ownership stake in Broderick

Roadhouse in West Sacramento and Anonimo Pizza in Sacramento. Those two remain open.

Volt Coffee, Tea & Taps plans to open on Tuesday, Aug. 1, at 1123 Olive Drive. It will be a cafe in its early hours, and a beer taproom with two food trailers in the evenings.

Owner Rob Salazar said the food trailers are ready but there are some delays in other materials, keeping it from opening in early July as planned.

“We are making great progress,” Salazar said Thursday.

“Lots of people on Olive Drive and around the city are excited for this type of coffee, tea and beer establishment.”

Shipwrecked Tiki Bar, filling the bar portion of the former Woodstock’s Pizza space at 217 G St., is expected to open in July. I left a message with the owner to see if it was still on track for early July but didn’t receive a reply by my deadline.

It will sell tiki drinks and allow outside food.

The bar’s decorations tell the story of shipwrecked Captain Bob. Pedestrians on G Street can already preview the captain in the bar’s window. Follow Captain Bob’s travels on Instagram at @ shipwreckedtikibar. The posts show more décor, like giant blue octopus tentacles.

The Days Inn at 4100 Chiles Road is being renovated and transformed into The Prodigy Hotel. General Manager Maria Cisneros said Prodigy is another brand of Wyndham.

Prodigy isn’t listed as a brand on the Wyndham Hotels website. I left messages with the hotel’s chief operating officer and with the Wyndham Hotels media relations team but did not immediately hear back.

The renovations include updates to the bathrooms, lobby, and a new gray and black color palette, Cisneros said Thursday.

Davis’ original Tim’s Hawaiian BBQ at 247 Third St. is closed temporarily. The downtown

restaurant at 516 Second St. remains open. A woman who answered the phone at the downtown store said the other Tim’s was closed for a week or so. I first noticed it closed on Father’s Day.

The Hawaiian BBQ restaurant is not to be confused with Tim’s Kitchen, which is at 808 Second St., in the former Our House spot.

The Arby’s in Woodland closed for good earlier this month. At 85 W. Court St., it was the only Arby’s in Yolo County. The next closest is in Sacramento.

Before messaging me about the status of an ongoing project, please review my paywall-free Google spreadsheet, which includes more than 325 Davis businesses. It’s at https://bit.ly/ DavisBusinesses. The most active tabs are Restaurants Open, Restaurants Closed and Coming Soon.

— Wendy Weitzel is a Davis writer and editor. Her column runs on Sundays. Check for frequent updates on her Comings & Goings Facebook and Instagram accounts. If you know of a business coming or going in the area, email news tips to wendyedit@ gmail.com

U.S. News & World Report names UCD Children’s Hospital among nation’s best

Special to The Enterprise

SACRAMENTO — UC Davis Children’s Hospital has been recognized as a 2023-2024 Best Children’s Hospital by U.S. News & World Report.

The annual Best Children’s Hospitals rankings, now in their 17th year, are designed to assist parents of children with rare or lifethreatening illnesses and their doctors in choosing the right hospital for them.

UC Davis Children’s Hospital is nationally ranked among the nation’s 50 best in three specialty care areas:

n 34th nationally in nephrology

n 41st nationally in pediatric diabetes & endocrinology

n 20th nationally in pediatric orthopedics, which was awarded in collaboration with Shriners Children’s – Northern California, UC Davis Children’s Hospital’s longstanding partner in caring for children with burns, spinal cord injuries, orthopedic

disorders and urological issues

Regionally, UC Davis Children’s Hospital was ranked 8th in California and 10th in the Pacific Region.

“We are proud to be named a Best Children’s Hospital by U.S. News & World Report. It is our privilege to provide nationally ranked pediatric care, close to home, right here in Sacramento,” said Brad Simmons, chief administrator of UC Davis Medical Center and UC Davis Children’s Hospital. “Our physicians, nurses and support staff put their heart into everything that they do to support our patient families. Congratulations to our entire team for delivering

the highest quality of care to our children and their families.”

Michelle James, chief of orthopedic surgery at Shriners Children’s Northern California, said their team is honored to be recognized in pediatric orthopedics, in partnership with UC Davis Children’s Hospital.

“We are very proud of our 26-year partnership,” James said. “For pediatric orthopedists, our greatest professional joy is helping children accomplish things that are important to them.

I applaud our physicians, nurses, care teams and staff for their ongoing leadership, innovation and collaboration, allowing us to provide the highest quality care for our patients.”

U.S. News, together with RTI International, a North Carolina-based research and consulting firm, collected and analyzed data from 119 children’s hospitals and surveyed thousands of pediatric specialists. Children’s hospitals awarded a “Best” designation excelled at fac-

tors such as clinical outcomes, level and quality of hospital resources directly related to patient care and expert opinion among pediatric specialists.

For 2023-24, U.S. News ranked the top 50 centers in each of these 10 pediatric specialties. For the second year, the Best Children’s Hospitals rankings featured expanded offerings

that include state rankings and multi-state regional rankings.

“For 17 years, U.S. News has provided comprehensive information to help parents of sick children and their doctors find the best children’s hospital to treat their illness or condition,” said Ben Harder, chief of health analysis and managing editor at U.S. News.

Pedestrians on G Street can view this scene in the window of the future Shipwrecked Tiki Bar. The space will feature décor that tells the story of shipwrecked Captain Bob.

Courtesy photo

Alexandra “Pandi” Chorey teaches a toddler how to float.

STORIES: Aggies overcome obstacles, make a difference

students have to study abroad. She also helped Global Affairs research best practices to support minority students going abroad.

As an intern with Article 26 Backpack, a human rights tool supporting academic mobility, she translated documents into Spanish and helped users in different countries access educational and work records safely stored in their digital “backpacks.” Mares de Juan plans to start a master’s degree in nationalism and conflict management at the University of Salamanca in Spain.

A promise fulfilled

Austin Nichols, 48, of Vacaville had small photos of his late parents to wear on his graduation tassel as he received a bachelor’s degree in African American and African studies.

Nichols’ parents had pushed him to take his education seriously, but it was only years later after his father died that he learned why. After wasting his high school years but still graduating, Nichols joined the Navy. In a bargain struck then with his parents, he promised to earn a degree later. After Nichols was honorably discharged, life happened. Marriage. Three children, now 21, 17 and 8. A career with Comcast Communications and now as a journeyman transmission gas system operator with PG&E. And after his mother died, nine years as a caregiver for his father.

But when his father died in 2018, Nichols learned what had made his dad so adamant about schooling: He hadn’t been able to go to high school. He was a sharecropper until age 18 on the Louisiana land where his ancestors had been enslaved. Within six months, Nichols started full-time at Contra Costa College, where he earned an associate degree in 2021. At UC Davis, he continued full-time studies — enthralled to be studying his African American heritage. Nichols snagged a lot of night shifts and continued working full time with PG&E. He wasn’t planning on attending graduation until his wife said it would be an important example for their children, including one studying at San Jose State and another starting at UC Davis in the fall. And this is Father’s Day weekend.

University Medalist

Neeraj Senthil of Sunnyvale earned the University Medal as the campus’s top graduating senior and a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering. Between maintaining A-plus grades, earning a provisional patent and coauthoring a research paper, his weekly activities have included cuddling sick babies at the university’s medical center and teaching math at local schools. Read the news release.

Student speaker

Yoanna Soliman of Ventura earned a bachelor’s degree in molecular and medical

Student speaker

Eduardo “Eddie” Landicho of Springville received a bachelor’s degree in design and is in the first generation of his family to graduate from a four-year university.

Landicho has a rare form of muscular dystrophy and has used a wheelchair since age 5. After earning two associate degrees at a community college, he transferred to UC Davis for how he could use the Department of Design’s curriculum in the field of architecture to make a better future for people with disabilities.

Health-Related Internship program, Nguyen got experience working in a dental office serving low-income patients. Nguyen also served on the board of two organizations, one that promotes student mental health, and Project Connect, which fosters service to build connections among students and other members of the Davis community.

Student speaker

microbiology on her way to a career in medicine. An immigrant from Egypt at age 8 and raised by a single mother, she served as director of philanthropy for Empowered Arab Sisterhood — Epsilon Alpha Sigma, the first Arab sorority in the nation, and she organized its Women’s Empowerment Week twice.

In addition to being a student assistant in graduate studies, Soliman also served as a chemistry department ambassador, organizing social and careerrelated events. As chair of the student government’s committee for science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, she organized events to promote STEM education and career preparation. Through the student organization Project Catalyst, Soliman introduced local elementary school students to science experiments.

Landicho participated in the department’s diversity, equity and inclusion committee and served as its student chair. He has showcased his projects for others and created a project proposal to make his department’s home building a place with more radical forms of accessibility. Landicho gave a 2022 TEDx UC Davis Talk, in which he explained how design is the key to creating a sustainable, inclusive and equitable environment for those with disabilities.

Student speaker

Karen Nguyen, from near Ceres took home a bachelor of science degree in neurobiology, physiology and behavior and is pursuing a career in dentistry. She served as president of the Pre-Dental Society at UC Davis and founded The Filling, which raises funds and donates supplies and volunteer services to provide oral health care for those in need. Through the UC Davis

Genna Weinstein of Los Angeles graduated with a bachelor’s degree in international relations and African American and African studies with a minor in communication. Her experience at UC Davis has provided a good foundation for her intended career doing community outreach and advocacy for the University of California or a nonprofit or political advocacy group in K-12 education policy.

Weinstein has supported communications for the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion as well as the Quarter at Aggie Square; worked in strategic communications during an internship at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law in Washington, D.C.; served as the chief of staff for a senator of the student government; and represented the university at high schools, universities and the state Capitol. She has served as an assistant director of Picnic Day and completed the 48 Aggie Traditions. Weinstein was also involved with Hillel House, the Archery Club and Pi Sigma Alpha, a political science honor society.

CARE: Providers looking to overcome decades of poor compensation

From Page A1

with the state over subsidized child care reimbursement rates. And the state has issued multiple rounds of temporary stipends to providers who lost revenue during the pandemic.

But the 40,000-member union representing the home-based providers says Newsom’s administration isn’t offering providers enough to keep them in business long term. The union’s current contract expires in less than two weeks, at the end of June.

Bargaining for a new one this year, the union has called for a 25% bump in reimbursement rates the state pays to providers who care for low-income families’ kids — and state

funding for the union to set up a trust to issue retirement benefits.

Providers staged a rally with about 2,000 members and supporters at the Capitol last week and plan to set up camp outside the Governor’s Mansion this week.

“As a direct result of their action, providers are gaining ground in negotiations towards pay increases and basic benefits — but we have yet to see a fair and just contract offer from the state,” said Max Arias, chairperson of the Child Care Providers’ Union, in a statement. “There appears to be no interest in committing to ongoing rate increases or covering the full cost of care.”

Family or home-based

providers care for 28% of children who attend licensed facilities in California. Parents also send children to daycare centers or state-funded preschools, or pay a family member or friend.

Gabriela Guerrero, a family child care provider, speaks to the crowd gathered for the Child Care Providers United rally at the state Capitol in Sacramento on June 15, 2023.

Photo by Julie A Hotz for CalMatters

Stopgap measure

To some advocates and members of the Legislative Women’s Caucus, even winning the raises would be only a stopgap measure to keep providers in busi-

SMOKE: Growers eager for help

From Page A1

year after year, which creates a serious smoke exposure problem for wine grape growers across the West Coast. Vineyards in Washington state and all the way down to California need a crop insurance policy for smoke-exposed wine grapes, rather than being forced to rely on ad-hoc disaster assistance from year to year — and that’s what this legislation will provide. I’m proud that research at Washington State University has played a leading role in studying the impacts of smoke exposure, and this bill takes a critical and needed step to protect our state’s vital wine industry.”

"The profound losses experienced by growers due to impacts of wildfire smoke underscore the pressing need for research and have highlighted the necessity for improvements to crop insurance to safeguard growers,” said Natalie Collins, President of the California Association of Winegrape Growers. “We commend Congressman Thompson for recognizing the long-lasting ramifications of wildfires on the wine grape industry, and for prioritizing solutions to ensure a more sustainable future for an industry that serves as a vital economic force," she said.

“The wildfires in 2020

were especially detrimental to our wine grape crop given the timing in the harvest season. Our farmers invest all year in growing the crop and when it cannot be harvested, It can be financially devastating. Crop insurance and support is crucial for the long term preservation of agriculture in these uncertain times,” said Karissa Kruse, President of Sonoma County Winegrowers.

The legislation requires research and development of a crop insurance product that provides comprehensive coverage for smoke-impacted winegrape growers.

Helps to mitigate future financial losses in these key regions of production.

Thompson represents California’s 4th Congressional District, which includes all or part of Lake, Napa, Solano, Sonoma and Yolo Counties. He is a senior member of the House Committee on Ways and Means. Rep. Thompson is Chairman of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force. He is also Co-Chair of the bipartisan, bicameral Congressional Wine Caucus and a member of the fiscallyconservative Blue Dog Coalition.

ness. The child care industry has experienced a slow recovery the past three years and still employs 5% fewer people than it did before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a recent study by the UC Berkeley Center for the Study of Child Care Employment.

They’re pushing the state to move faster to fundamentally overhaul the way it calculates reimbursement rates. Sen. Monique Limón, a Democrat from Santa Barbara, authored a bill this year directing the state to overhaul the rates and provide the $1 billion raise in the meantime.

The $1 billion in the Legislature’s budget “solves an immediate problem,” she said. “It doesn’t solve the

full, 10-year problem.”

The state’s reimbursement rates are generally tied to how much providers charge in the private market — but because many child care providers lower their prices to meet what parents can afford, the rates have ended up artificially low, in a system that a state-commissioned report last year described as a “market failure.” That in turn results in chronic shortages of child care for parents.

That report, on child care funding in California, was commissioned by a working group the state convened as part of its current contract with the child care union. In the report the national firm Prenatal to Five Fiscal Strategies,

found California pays some daycare owners as little as a quarter of what the service costs.

A new model

Advocates say it’s possible the state could come up with a new payment method that gradually, over several years, gets the pay closer to providers’ real costs.

Eric Peterson, director of client services and policy at Bananas, an Oakland agency that helps families find child care and subsidies to pay for it, sat on the working group that commissioned the cost report.

In nearly three decades in the field, Peterson said, pay for providers “has never been adequate.”

Courtesy photo

Yoanna Soliman.

Campaign starts to ban underage marriages in California

By Rya Jetha CalMatters

They stood on the steps of the state Capitol, in white bridal gowns and veils, their wrists chained together and their mouths taped shut.

They are survivors of forced and child marriages — and they want California to finally outlaw child brides.

“When I was 14 years old, my parents coerced me into marrying the 27-year-old pedophile who had been abusing me for two years because I became pregnant and it brought ‘shame’ to the family,” said Pat Abatemarco, who said she eventually escaped the marriage, with her daughter, with the help of a social worker.

Thursday, she and others shared their stories of enduring gender-based violence, being forced to abandon their education, and becoming estranged from their families during the “chain-in” protest organized by Unchained At Last, a national advocacy nonprofit, to launch a campaign for the law.

“We are here in gowns and chains to demand an end to a human rights abuse and nightmarish legal trap that gives getout-of-jail-free cards to child rapists,” said Fraidy Reiss, a forced marriage survivor who founded Unchained At Last. “What better way to urge legislators to take action than to show them what life looks like for those who are forced into marriage?”

In California, you must be 18 to get a divorce. But there is no minimum age to get married, as long as a parent or guardian consent and a court gives permission. California is among just seven states, including New Mexico and Oklahoma, that does not have a

minimum age for marriage. Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris, an Irvine Democrat, plans to introduce legislation next year to end child marriage.

“We like to think that here in California…we are ahead of the curve,” she said. “But when it comes to child marriage, we aren’t leading, we aren’t even following. We are failing.”

A false start

In 2017, California was on track to be the first state to pass an absolute ban on marriages for those younger than 18. However, due to opposition from the American Civil Liberties Union, the Children’s Law Center and Planned Parenthood, the bill proposed by then-Sen. Jerry Hill was watered down to add some safeguards for child marriage.

In an opposition letter, the ACLU said that the bill “unnecessarily and unduly intrudes on the fundamental rights of marriage without sufficient cause,” while the Children’s Law Center said that “…for some minors, the decision to marry is based on positive, pro-social factors and the marriage furthers their personal, short and longterm goals.”

Pat Abatemarco, a child marriage survivor, speaks during a press conference at the state Capitol in Sacramento on June 22, 2023.

by Rahul Lal, CalMatters

Most research disputes the claims made by the Children’s Law Center. A review by the International Center for Research on Women found that married girls are more likely to drop out of school and less likely to complete college, more likely to live in poverty, and at greater risk of diabetes and cancer.

“It’s not at all about

maturity.” Reiss said, “but what you wake up with on your 18th birthday, which is crucial, is the rights of adulthood,” including leaving home, renting an apartment, getting into a domestic violence shelter, or taking legal action.

The U.S. State Department classifies forced marriage as a human rights abuse, while the International Labor Organization has called it a form of modern slavery.

“The federal government considers marriage under the age of 18 in foreign countries a human rights abuse, yet it still remains legal right here in our own backyards,” Petrie-Norris said at the protest. “I am committed to ending this human rights abuse in California. One child forced into marriage is one too many.”

Under California law, it’s statutory rape when an adult has sex with someone younger than 18, if they are not married. The crime is a misdemeanor or a felony, depending on the age difference.

The law that eventually passed in 2018 required a judge and Family Court Services to interview both parties to the marriage and a guardian to determine that coercion, child abuse and trafficking were not taking place.

The law also required local registrars to begin reporting the number of marriage certificates issued to minors. Since 2019, the state has reported fewer than 20 child marriages.

But in 2021, about 8,800 15- to 17-year-olds in California reported being married in the previous 12 months to the U.S. Census, according to an analysis by Unchained At Last. The vast majority, but not all, are girls.

The group says that the huge difference in the numbers is because many registrars are not keeping track of child marriages.

What other states are doing

Since the limited 2018 law took effect in Califor-

nia, nine states have made the marriage age 18 with no exceptions: Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont. This week, Michigan’s Legislature voted to ban child marriage.

Protestors and advocates hope that California will be the eleventh state to ban child marriage with no exceptions. But a bill to do that has already been weakened in the current session.

Instead of setting a minimum marriage age, the bill now addresses some underage marriages that are done through spiritual ceremonies that are not legally recognized.

“While some — myself included — have concerns with minors getting married under any circumstances, California does have some guardrails to protect children,” the bill’s author, Sen. Aisha Wahab, a Fremont Democrat, said in a statement to CalMatters. “However, current law does not account for

instances in which a third party arranges or officiates an underground marriage between a minor and another person, and that is what we are targeting with this bill.”

In May, the state Senate unanimously passed the amended Senate Bill 404, which would make it a misdemeanor for any person to knowingly sanction a religious union or unauthorized secular union between a minor and another person.

While supporters say this proposal would strengthen California’s ability to protect children, some backers of the original bill said the current version could further harm children by criminalizing their families and communities.

“The survivors of forced marriage that we serve often have complicated relationships with the parents or communities who pressure them to marry,” the Tahirih Justice Center says in the bill analysis. “In many cases, even after facing significant abuse, they still love and value these social bonds and hope for reconciliation.”

Unchained At Last also says the amended bill doesn’t address the real problem; it wants a minimum marriage age of 18. Thursday’s protest, similar to those held in other states, is the beginning of building a coalition in California, said Reiss. The group plans to sit down individually with legislators, to make the case for a law.

“There are some human rights abuses we all agree are terrible, but we might not be able to eliminate them in our lifetime,” said Reiss. “But child marriage in California, we can end it, not only in our lifetime … (but) this year.”

Photo

Rahul lal/CalMatteRs photo

Forced and child marriage survivors arrive to address support for a ban of the practice during a press conference at the state

Lawmakers wage Delta water war with Newsom

By Rachel Becker CalMatters

Amping up their concerns as a deadline looms, key California legislators escalated their pushback on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s efforts to streamline the Delta water tunnel and other infrastructure projects.

The stalemate could become a critical lever while lawmakers haggle with Newsom over the 2023-2024 budget leading up to his June 27 deadline for approving the spending plan.

A bipartisan group of 10 lawmakers from the Assembly and the Senate signed on to a letter today urging Newsom and legislative leaders to stall Newsom’s package of infrastructure bills “for as long as the Delta Conveyance Project remains a part of the proposal.”

The legislators said Newsom’s proposals — which would overhaul permitting and litigation for expansive projects like the controversial tunnel plan to replumb the Delta and send more water south — could cause environmental harm.

“Rather than taking up a few blocks like a stadium, the tunnel would span multiple counties and impose water and air quality concerns throughout the region.

If the project is litigated under (the California Environmental Quality Act), the process should not be rushed,” said the letter, spearheaded by Assemblyman Carlos Villapudua, a Democrat from Stockton and a member of the Delta Caucus.

In mid-May, Newsom unveiled an executive order and package of wide-ranging proposals to streamline state approval of major infrastructure projects, such as bridges, reservoirs, semiconductor plants and the Delta tunnel. Some of his proposals aim to keep transportation, energy and water projects from stalling under legal challenges related to the California Environmental Quality Act and make the state more appealing for federal funding.

The fight pits Newsom against lawmakers who say they feel

“jammed” by Newsom’s use of the budget process to fasttrack the bills. Environmental groups and salmon fishermen are squaring off against building and labor groups. And Delta counties are once again waging a decades-long battle against a massive water project that would reshape their region.

The Newsom administration says the changes are urgent because California needs to more rapidly build water and energy projects to prepare for climate change.

“The proposals that the governor brings forward we don’t bring forward lightly into the budget process, but because we have to take action now,” California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot said at a joint hearing of the Assembly Judiciary and Natural Resources committees in early June. “We need to be in a dead sprint implementing what we call our water supply strategy for a hotter, drier future.”

Newsom’s Deputy Communications Director Alex Stack said the package “ensures California would still have the same nationleading environmental protections while also cutting unnecessary red tape that has stalled key climate projects for years.”

The final budget is not contingent on Newsom’s infrastructure proposals, and they could be enacted after it’s signed. But experts suspect they will be used as a political lever while negotiations hashing out the budget continue through the end of this month.

Introduced as budget trailer bills less than a month before the Legislature’s June 15 budget deadline, Newsom’s proposals bypass the typical legislative policy committee lineup and give lawmakers and the public less opportunity for deliberation or amendments.

“It feels disrespectful to the process, to all the work that we’ve done … to have something come at this late date and want to be rushed through that has had such an impact on my district, and the state and the 4 million people

who reside in that area,” Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman, a Democrat from Stockton, said in a committee hearing this month. Assembly consultants warned in a report that this approach “significantly limits transparency and public input” and “increases the potential for creating unintended consequences.”

“They (Newsom officials) want to rewrite more than a century of California law in a backroom deal,” Doug Obegi, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told CalMatters.

During informational hearings held in early June, lawmakers noted that this is not the first time that the Newsom administration has brought policy proposals into the budget process. “It is starting to feel like we are being jammed by design,” Sen. Monique Limón, a Democrat from Santa Barbara, said at the Senate Natural Resources and Water hearing.

‘Overly onerous’ regulations or ‘railroading’ projects?

Water providers, business interests and several labor unions have voiced support for Newsom’s policy package.

“Major infrastructure projects are too often bogged down in overly onerous regulatory processes and a siloed approach to permitting approvals, which increases overall costs and delays

critical projects,” the Association of California Water Agencies, Mojave Water Agency, and the Almond Alliance all wrote in individual letters.

Much of the opposition stressed the impact on the tunnel project, including a coalition of the five counties ringing the Delta — Sacramento, Solano, San Joaquin, Contra Costa and Yolo.

“The Legislature is being asked to railroad over the objections of 4 million people and the 25 county supervisors that represent them and are trying to protect their homes and communities,” said Karen Lange on behalf of the Delta Counties Coalition at an informational hearing of the Assembly Committee on Water, Parks, and Wildlife. “In the case of the tunnel, every county and city that is affected by it opposes it.”

Stockton community organizations, salmon fishers and environmental groups said Newsom’s plan would remove guardrails and hamper litigation against the Delta tunnel and other projects.

One Newsom proposal, for instance, would exclude certain internal communications such as emails from the administrative record prepared for litigation if they didn’t ultimately reach the final decision-making body.

Assembly analysts warned that this “allows the agency to pick and choose what documents to include in the record.” Though these records could be available under a separate California Pub-

lic Records Act request, this too can lead to lawsuits and delays and “could prove very costly to public agencies.”

In today’s letter, legislators criticized parts of the package that would set a time limit for lawsuits challenging the tunnel and other projects and reduce protections against killing certain wildlife species, such as sandhill cranes that winter in the Delta.

Crowfoot told CalMatters that the proposals were not developed specifically to push through the tunnel project.

“I haven’t been part of any internal conversation on fully protected species and our need to modernize it that discuss the Sandhill crane or its relationship to the project,” he said. “The intent is not to short circuit any environmental review or public input, but it is to ultimately get to an answer around whether this project can be supported and move forward.”

Decades in the making yet still decades from completion, the proposed tunnel has been called both a water grab and a critical update to water supplies for 27 million people, mostly in Southern California, and 750,000 acres of farmland. State officials say it would protect a vital water artery from earthquakes, sea level rise and extreme swings from wet to dry, while local communities and environmental groups say it would upend the way of life and sensitive ecosystems of the Delta. The estimated price tag, last updated in 2020, is around $16 billion, which would eventually be paid back by water agencies receiving its supplies. Last year, a draft state environmental report warned that the tunnel project would harm endangered and threatened species, convert 2,300 acres of farmland, and disrupt cultural and historic sites.

Asked why the administration included such a fiercely contested issue in the infrastructure package as part of the budget process, Crowfoot said in an interview, “We simply can’t kick the can down the road on this question because it generates disagreements and controversy.”

Florence low/caliFornia Department oF water resources photo

Geese swim in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta on Oct. 13, 2020.

MIND Summer Institute focuses on inclusion for all

Special to The Enterprise

SACRAMENTO — Inclusion

for individuals with autism, ADHD, fragile X syndrome and other neurodevelopmental disabilities is the focus of a summer event planned by the UC Davis MIND Institute. The annual MIND Summer Institute on Neurodevelopmental Disabilities is July 28 and will feature both in-person and virtual options.

The annual event is for educators, health care providers, individuals with neurodevelopmental disabilities such as autism, ADHD and fragile X syndrome, students, families, and caregivers.

The goal is to share the latest resources, research advances and best practices for assessment, treatment and support.

The Summer Institute is an opportunity to learn and connect.

It includes a keynote presentation on lifelong inclusion and panel

discussions with people who have lived experience. Breakout sessions will also be led by community partners, panelists and MIND Institute employees.

Spanish translation will be offered for both virtual and inperson attendees.

“I am looking forward to meeting new people and learning about people’s experiences with inclusion in different areas of life so we can support innovation in this area,” said Aubyn Stahmer, professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Stahmer is also the director of the MIND Institute’s Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities, which hosts the event.

n A focus on meaningful inclusion This year's theme is “Inclusion and Belonging: Powerful Discussions to Engage our Community.”

The focus is meaningful inclusion of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities in many areas, including housing, health care and employment.

“It is our hope that this event creates a platform for important discussions and dialogue related to inclusion and how as a community we can continue to learn from one another and work together to create positive changes,” said Amber Fitzgerald, a program manager and trainer at the MIND Institute who is cocoordinator of the event.

nFirst hybrid Summer Institute This will be the 18th Summer Institute event and the first hybrid one, offering both in-person and virtual attendance. Inperson sessions will be held at Hiram Johnson High School at 6879 14th Ave. in Sacramento.

The event runs from 9 a.m. to 2

p.m. The first part of the day will include a research talk about inclusion and a panel of people with disabilities and their caregivers who will share their experiences about inclusion. The in-person portion will include lunch and breakout discussions about different aspects of inclusion. These discussions will not be part of the virtual option.

Summer Institute was an inperson event for many years, but for the last three, it was completely virtual due to the pandemic. Thanks to the online format, about 1,000 people from nearly 20 countries registered for the event each year.

“I am looking forward to bringing people together to learn about inclusion in this new hybrid model,” said Kelly Heung, a program manager at the MIND Institute and co-coordinator of the event. “In-person attendees

will have the opportunity to make meaningful connections with other participants, and virtual attendees will have the flexibility to participate in an accessible way, thus allowing a broader reach of participants.”

“I am especially excited about hearing from our panel members as they share their own experiences of inclusion,” Fitzgerald said. “The presentation and panel discussion will create a great foundation for our community members to engage personally with one another, taking the time to listen, connect and hear about the lived experiences of others as we discuss the importance of inclusion. Summer Institute is an opportunity for the MIND Institute to both give back and learn from the community.”

Links to register are online at https://wp.me/p3aczg-4kjw.

Health

Davis

— UC

Times are changing in sports

For years we could count on stability in the world of sports.

Some things were true and they would always be true.

The Dodgers and the Giants and the Yankees all played baseball in New York. The Athletics were in Philadelphia along with the NBA’s Warriors. The Lakers were in Minneapolis and Johnny Unitas was throwing touchdown passes for the Baltimore Colts.

But then one day USC and UCLA decided they’d rather play Ohio State than Oregon State, Wisconsin rather than Washington, and Northwestern rather than Northwest powerhouse Oregon.

So they upped and left a league they’d belonged to since God invented football and joined the Big Ten. And just imagine how excited USC fans are going to be when their season tickets show home games against Rutgers and Maryland instead of Cal and Stanford.

Oklahoma and Texas bolted for the SEC where the Boomer Sooner wagon can now do cartwheels on the turf at Tuscaloosa instead of Lawrence, Kansas.

None of those four defectors will ever win a league championship again, no less a national championship.

The latest defector-inwaiting is San Diego State, so intoxicated by its run to the championship game of March Madness that it thinks it’s ready for prime time.

The Aztecs have already notified the Mountain West that they’re on the move, almost certainly to the Pac12 should Colorado go back to the Big 12 where it belongs.

The Pac-12, desperate to avoid disintegration, is also looking at SMU and Nevada-Las Vegas, which is flat out silly.

Yes, SMU is in the huge Dallas TV market, but nobody in Dallas even knows what the initials SMU stand for.

The situation is similar in Las Vegas, which is also a huge TV market, but again, nobody cares about UNLV football, what with the Raiders in town in a sparkling new multibillion dollar stadium, the A’s on the way and the Golden Knights driving down The Strip in a Cadillac convertible with the Stanley Cup sitting in the front seat.

UNLV is routinely terrible in football, attendance is abysmal and most parents don’t want their 18-year-old quarterback attending college in Sin City.

If John Robinson couldn’t win there, nobody can.

Last year I said the Pac12 should look at UC Davis. It still should, but it’s not going to happen, so I won’t bring it up again.

Once the University Farm, always the University Farm.

But the Mountain West, trying to fill the gaping hole that San Diego State’s loss has created, will be See TIMES, Page B7

Volleyball Former Aggie receives inspirational award

Enterprise staff

LOS ANGELES – Former UC Davis women’s volleyball standout and 2022 graduate Mahalia White recently received the 2023 Honda Inspiration Award, announced by the Collegiate Women’s Sports Awards presented by Honda.

Her story will be highlighted in a Honda Inspiration Award special on CBS Sports Network, Defying the Odds: The 2023 Honda Inspiration Award. This special will air Monday at 5 p.m. PT, leading into the Collegiate Women Sports Award presented by Honda.

This award has been handed out for 35 years, an honor given to a female student-athlete who has overcome extraordinary hardship during her collegiate playing career.

A recipient of the 2022 Sarah Sumpter Perseverance Award during last year’s Launch Day, there is no more deserving candidate than White.

In 2017, White put together a debut season that saw her named the Big West Freshman of the Year, All-Big

Football

Schoen gaining respect for his new role

By Henry Krueger Enterprise correspondent

Utilizing a “short-term memory” is a commonly-held practice for athletes looking to forget about their past mistakes.

Davis High senior Sawyer Schoen is a proponent of this mentality, especially since his first two seasons on the football team were not ones to remember.

The Blue Devils went winless in Delta League play in 2022, finishing with a 2-8 record. Davis knocked off Pleasant Grove in a league game, and finished its season at 1-8.

As Schoen prepares to become the starting quarterback this season, his focus on the present and future is stronger than ever.

“I’ve got a next-play mentality because you can’t think about it too much,” Schoen said. “The game is four quarters long. It’s not one play.”

Many 7-on-7 games this month

Schoen and the Blue Devils participated in three 7-on-7 events against a collection of programs this month. While Schoen has grown more comfortable leading the offense, he’s also gained respect for his new role and the variety of responsibilities it comes with.

“It’s a hard position,” Schoen said. “You got to know the defense, you got to know the whole playbook and every position. But I’m slowly getting there. I’ve slowly been able to figure it out.”

One of the more prominent developments for Schoen has been his leadership skills, which he sees as an integral part of being a quarterback.

‘Top of everything’

“As a leader, you’ve got to be on top of everything,” Schoen said. “Any quarterback has a big leadership role. I was really nervous about it coming into this year. I wasn’t sure if my teammates had my back, but as we’ve gone through these practices, I think they do and I’ve gotten more confident.”

In practices and scrimmages, Schoen has been working closely with head coach Nick Garratt, who has noticed the young quarterback’s impact as a vocal presence in the locker room.

“Sawyer is starting to assume more of this leadership role,” Garratt said. “He and the rest of the team are coming together and they’ve made a lot of progress.”

Schoen has also taken the initiative in try-

ing to build chemistry with each of his receivers, including CJ Millican, who will serve as both a pass-catcher and a lineman this season. Schoen connected with Millican on a 10-yard touchdown pass during last Tuesday’s 7-on-7 scrimmages.

“They’re beginning to realize that they need to throw more, they need to start building relationships outside of practice,” Garratt said. “Every good quarterback and every good receiver understands each other’s characteristics and how to make it all work.”

The Blue Devils embarked on a trip to Lake Tahoe this weekend for a “team-building” experience, according to Garratt. The second-year coach hopes his squad will return as a more cohesive unit with an increased focus on getting better.

Davis is hosting more 7-on-7 games and linemen challenges this Tuesday, before the SacJoaquin Section’s three-week preseason football dead period begins on July 3.

Schoen and the Blue Devils open the regular season at Vacaville on Aug. 18.

— Henry Krueger is a Gonzaga University student and working as a correspondent for The Enterprise this spring and summer. He was an intern at the newspaper in 2022. Follow him on Twitter: @henrykrveger.

Mike trask/enterprise File photo

Quarterback Sawyer Schoen looks for a receiver down the field during a Davis High football team’s 7-on-7 game at Ron and Mary Brown Stadium earlier this month.

See AGGIE, Page B7

UC DaVis athletiCs/CoUrtesy photo Mahalie White (5) goes up for the shot during an Aggie home match in 2021. She battled through lymphoma and a torn ACL during her collegiate career.

Commentary

Regulations choking legal cannabis market

By Tiffany DeviTT

Special to CalMatters

The chief financial officer of the cannabis company MariMed was recently asked where her team was considering expanding. Her reply: “Not California.”

Susan Villare is not alone in that sentiment. Numerous well-capitalized businesses are pulling up stakes and abandoning substantial investments rather than face mounting losses. Many investors describe the market as “brutal” and “toxic.”

Currently 2 out of every 3 cannabis purchases are made in the illicit market. Evidence suggests that disparity is getting worse. Legal sales have been on a two-year slide.

Another symptom of turbulent times is business failures. About 15% of cultivators have surrendered their licenses this year; others are letting fields go fallow, unable to fund this year’s harvest.

Things are no better further up the supply chain. A year ago, there was a robust brand community. In May 2022, there were close to 1,500 brands in the market. A year later, less than a thousand remain.

Distributors are also struggling. A 2022 report estimates that they are sitting on about $600 million dollars of invoices that retailers are unable or unwilling to pay.

As for California’s cannabis retailers, numerous industry observers are warning of yet another “extinction event.” The probable closure of hundreds of dispensaries will further destabilize the industry as farmers and manufacturers lose access to legal-market customers.

For all the talk of equity and “righting the wrongs” of the drug war, all of this is taking place in an industry without bankruptcy protections, where individuals carry personal liability for business taxes, and where businesses are barred from writing off normal expenses.

In other words, behind the industry’s potential demise are thousands of intimate, personal stories of financial ruin.

Proposition 64, the 2016 initiative to legalize cannabis, began with the statement: “It is the intent of the People … to take marijuana production and sales out of the hands of the illegal market … to tax the growth and sale of marijuana in a way that drives out the illicit market …”

Our failure to achieve these voter-mandated goals is the root cause of much of the industry’s distress. So, what went wrong?

With the benefit of hindsight, it’s clear that Prop. 64 had two fatal flaws: high taxes and local control.

The state excise tax on a bottle of wine is 4 cents. For an eighth-ounce of cannabis, it’s $4.90 — more than 100 times more. Products are also subjected to countless local taxes. A single product may be taxed at cultivation, manufacturing, distribution and retail. Some jurisdictions even charge a “road tax” for merely transporting products.

These taxes compound the supply chain, resulting in an aggregate burden that’s 50% or more of the original price.

That’s hardly the way to “drive out the illicit market.” Absent larger tax reforms, cracking down against illegal cannabis will continue to be a losing game of whack-a-mole.

The second fatal flaw is local control, or the requirement that cannabis businesses receive permits from both the local jurisdiction and the state. That sounds reasonable. But in practice, it’s led to cannabis retail bans in much of the state.

By allowing municipalities to opt out of legalization, the state has essentially ceded two-thirds of the market to criminals. In these dry zones, unregulated, untaxed and untested cannabis is king, and consumers are still partying like it’s 1999.

Cannabis is one of California’s great heritage industries, along with wine, technology and entertainment – industries we’ve nurtured and fostered with supportive legislation and regulation.

By right, we should have a robust cannabis market that’s poised to dominate in a post-legalization world. But achieving that will require immediate changes to ensure legal cannabis is more accessible and less expensive for consumers.

— Tiffany Devitt is a board member of the California Cannabis Industry Association and the head of regulatory affairs for CannaCraft and March and Ash.

Virtue signaling could backfire

Virtue signaling is the bane of contemporary civic life.

Politicians, political parties, nonprofit organizations and even corporations loudly proclaim support for whatever cause is either trendy or beloved by a certain segment of the population – while lacking the ability, or often even intention, to see it prevail.

While such expressions of moral support may warm the hearts of a cause’s fervent believers, they mean little in the real world where, as the old saying goes, actions speak louder than words.

Examples of virtue signaling abound, such as a bill passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to create a commission to recommend reparations for Black Californians whose ancestors were enslaved.

Newsom, et al, were enthusiastic supporters of the cause when it was proposed. As he signed the 2020 legislation, Newsom said it would correct the “structural racism and bias built into and permeating throughout our democratic and economic institutions.”

However, with the commission now on the verge of makings its reparation recommendations, which could

be very expensive, enthusiasm has clearly waned.

“Dealing with that legacy is about much more than cash payments,” the governor said in an initial reaction to the commission’s preliminary report, while praising it again as “a milestone in our bipartisan effort to advance justice and promote healing.”

Another classic example of political virtue signaling is now making its way through the Legislature – a constitutional amendment declaring that Californians have a “fundamental human right to adequate housing.”

Everyone knows that California has a chronic shortage of housing, particularly for the millions of Californians with, at best, subsistence incomes. The shortage drives up housing costs, which are the chief factor in the state’s very high rate of poverty and its equally high level of homelessness.

The proposed amendment, which passed the Assembly

on a 74-0 vote last month and is now pending in the Senate, declares, “It is the shared obligation of state and local jurisdictions to respect, protect, and fulfill this right, on a nondiscriminatory and equitable basis, with a view to progressively achieve the full realization of the right, by all appropriate means, including the adoption and amendment of legislative measures, to the maximum of available resources.”

Noble sentiments, perhaps, but how would it affect the housing crisis?

Michael Tubbs, the former mayor of Stockton who now advises Newsom on povertyrelated issues, argued in a CalMatters commentary that it would force local governments to accept affordable housing projects, require tenant-friendly laws such as rent control and making evictions more difficult, and lead to more direct government investment in housing.

Perhaps it would, but not automatically. Assembly Constitutional Amendment 10 is full of the vague language that lawyers love because it requires lawsuits and judicial interpretations to have real-world meaning.

In other words, it would invite even more litigation on an issue that is already awash in contentious legalism.

The most bothersome aspect of ACA 10, however, is its assumption – as Tubbs suggests – that state and local governments have the innate ability to solve California’s housing dilemma. They don’t.

Building enough housing requires, above all, lots of money, much more than those governments can muster on their own. That money can only come from private investors who must be persuaded that building homes and apartments in California will be reasonably profitable. Officialdom’s most important role is reducing the bureaucratic hassle and costs of such investment, as Newsom and the Legislature have sought to do through streamlining legislation.

ACA 10 is not only virtue signaling but sends the wrong message to potential housing investors that California could make development even more difficult and potentially less profitable. — CalMatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters. For more stories by Dan Walters, go to Commentary.

Letters

STEAC, Sutter work together

While the public health emergency is officially over, many individuals are still struggling to support themselves and their families on poverty-level wages. As a result of this ongoing problem, as well as rising living costs, the Short Term Emergency Aid Committee last year experienced the largest spike to date in eviction prevention cases.

With demand for STEAC services still at elevated levels, STEAC feels fortunate to continue its collaboration with Sutter Health, which recently awarded STEAC a Community Heath Investment Award for our Eviction Prevention Program. Preventing homelessness not only keeps individuals and families housed, it also results in more stable communities, improved health, reduced crime and better educated children.

We are very grateful to continue working with Sutter Health to help families and individuals remain housed. With their support, we anticipate preventing evictions for over 200 families in 2023.

Liane Moody STEAC executive director

Speak out

President

Do something for climate

Assemblywoman Tina McKinnor is chair of the Public Employment and Retirement Committee. This committee will be the next to vote on approving SB 252 for CalPERS and CalSTRS divestment from fossil fuel. McKinnor’s support for a vote will be decisive.

McKinnor is a champion of education, labor and environmental solutions and a dedicated representative of her district in Inglewood. McKinnor has led the effort to unionize Capital staff and introduced AB 974 to help break the cycle of recidivism for formerly incarcerated Californians. Her district has received $407 million to extend and increase L.A. Metro (light rail) in the area.

Letting SB252 reach the floor is likely hitting home for McKinnor as large parts of her district have nearly twice the rate of respiratory illness than the rest of greater Los Angeles. Emissions drive respiratory disease, so investing in alternatives to tail pipe fumes is not just a good idea for her voters, it’s a matter of health and safety for the people of Marina Del Rey, Inglewood and Hawthorne.

McKinnor is someone to email or call (916-319-2061) to express your support for SB 252 — Sensible Fossil Fuel Divestment. She needs to hear how a commonsense eight-year wind-down, ending fossil

The Hon. Joe Biden, The White House, Washington, D.C., 20500; 202-456-1111 (comments), 202-456-1414 (switchboard); email: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

U.S. Senate

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, 331 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., 20510; 202-224-3841; email: https://www. feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/ e-mail-me

Sen. Alex Padilla, 112 Hart Senate Office

fuel investment, is in the best interest of public employees (private employees) and all Californians.

The California Faculty Association is a cosponsor of the legislation and union support includes State and County Employees — AFSCME California and the California Nurses Association (CNA) among others. Our unions don’t want $14 billion in stranded oil and gas assets on CalPERS and CalSTRS books!

Assemblywoman McKinnor, we are with you and the people of District 61. The eight-year plan for retirement fund fossil fuel divestment makes sense.

Scott Steward Davis Mace Blvd.

hazard

Last night I was driving about 35 mph, approaching Second Street on Mace, when BAM! I hit what felt like a curb when the road abruptly changed height. I was aware of the roadwork, but there was no warning before the road suddenly bumped up to the level of the old pavement.

I was thankful it didn’t damage my front tires. The city needs to put up adequate warning signage when construction crews aren’t present. “Caution: Loose Gravel” isn’t cutting it.

Eric Warp Davis

Building, Washington, D.C., 20510; 202224-3553; email: https://www.padilla. senate.gov/contact/contact-form/

House of Representatives

Rep. Mike Thompson, 268 Cannon Office Building, Washington, D.C., 20515; 202225-3311. District office: 622 Main Street, Suite 106, Woodland, CA 95695; 530-753-5301; email: https:// https:// mikethompsonforms.house.gov/contact/

Governor Gov. Gavin Newsom, State Capitol, Suite 1173, Sacramento, CA 95814; 916-4452841; email: https://govapps.gov.ca.gov/ gov40mail/

India’s done a lot for English, not enough for itself

By Llewellyn King

Special to The Enterprise

By the diplomatic hoopla in Washington that greeted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it would seem that intrepid U.S. explorers had just discovered India and were celebrating him in the way Britain treated tribal leaders in the 19th century: Show them the big time. Then co-opt them to vow allegiance.

In this century, the U.S. equivalent of the big time is a state visit and endless professions of friendship. Experience says Modi won’t bite.

Historically, India has been reluctant to accept the embrace of the West. Although it is democratic, capitalist and has the largest diaspora, India’s affections have been hard to capture.

Since independence from Britain in 1947, India has sought global status by

By Ken Silverstein

Special to The Enterprise

commenTary

standing aloof and leaning toward countries and regimes that are anathema to the West. Its first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, fostered the concept of a third force in the world: a constellation of unaligned nations with India at the center.

It showed a perverse affection for the Soviet Union — which was hardly nonaligned — and didn’t reflect the values of India: free movement of people, free press, capitalism and democracy.

Years ago, a retired executive editor of the Times of India, whom I knew socially, told me, “There are maybe a million Indians living in the United States and only a handful who live in the Soviet Union, but our leaders have always leaned toward them. It is a puzzle.”

There are now 4.2 million Indians living in the

United States.

At the same time, Indians migrated across the world and made inroads into professions from Canada to New Zealand. In Britain, they are prominent in politics and the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, is of Indian descent.

In the United States, executives of Indian descent run some of the largest tech companies, including IBM, Google and Microsoft.

Indians are a huge force in English literature. Every year Indian writers feature on the prize lists for best new English novels. Whereas the computers most of us use may have been made in China, much of the software was written in India.

Indian words abound in English: Pajamas, ketchup, bungalow, jungle, avatar, verandah, juggernaut and cot are just a few.

The effect of Indian culture on the world is

evident from curry and rice to polo to yoga.

Yet, India remains a distant shore, elusive and obvious at the same time.

A country of enormous talent that lags economically. It now has the fifth-largest economy in the world. With 1.4 billion people of obvious ability, the question must be, why does it still have crushing poverty?

Andres Carvallo, professor of innovation at Texas State University, told the “Digital 360” webinar, for which I am a regular panelist, he thought it was partly because India lagged in essential electricity production, pointing out that China has four times the electricity output of India.

But is this symptom or cause? I have been puzzling over why India doesn’t do better for decades. It seems to me that the causes are multiple,

but some can be laid at Britain’s feet — not because the British were occupiers in India, but because of some of the good things they left there that have perversely remained time-warped.

One of India’s ambassadors to Washington told me with pride that every occupier had enriched India and left something of value behind, from Alexander the Great to the Moguls and, of course, Britain and the Raj.

But the Brits also left behind a sluggish bureaucracy to the point of sclerosis and a legal system that is independent but takes an eternity to reach a decision. Additionally, some of the ideas prevalent in British Labor Party thinking — and long since abandoned — took hold in India and have been extremely detrimental. These included protectionism, a state’s role in the economy, and a fear of competition from abroad.

I believe that protectionism is the greatest evil. It discouraged competition, innovation and creativity. It inadvertently allowed a few families to concentrate too much wealth and economic power and to work to protect that.

India is more open now, but it needs to be vigilant against the evils that go with protectionism, which is still part of its DNA.

At one time, you could buy a brand-new Indian made-car — Fiat or Morris design — which was 30 years out of date. No need to innovate; just make the same car year after year.

If it liberalizes its economy, India may one day outpace China. Meantime, do luxuriate in those Indian words that have so spiced up English.

Llewellyn King is the executive producer and host of “White House Chronicle” on PBS. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.

Belize is an idyllic country surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and rainforests. But it expressed frustration that developing nations cannot fulfill promises to provide money dedicated to preserving such beauty.

At least $100 billion is required to save the rainforests, which are natural carbon dioxide vacuums. And countries and companies are asked to contribute even more to hasten the switch to renewable energy — on top of the billions host countries need to insulate themselves from the effects of climate change, such as rising tides and eroding beaches. The United States wants the private sector more involved — especially those big polluters making huge profits.

“Maintaining faith, patience and hope is difficult,” said Kenrick Williams, the manager of sustainable development and climate change for Belize. “We need real investments on the ground now and are looking for investors willing to take that risk. We fight against traditional markets and traditional investors.”

The U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change recently met in Bonn, Germany, where 192 nations met to discuss their path to net-zero — the precursor to COP28 in Dubai in December.

But the talks largely fell flat, with a key Pakistani committee chair calling participants “a class of primary school” students. Indeed, diplomats demanding more decisive action felt dejected.

The developed world prospered from the Industrial Revolution — growth that took decades with environmental regulations slow to catch up. But that came at the expense of emerging nations, which eventually witnessed rising temperatures, droughts and famine.

Early in the climate negotiations, the more affluent countries promised to give developing ones $100 billion — money that never materialized. And at last year’s global climate talks, negotiators agreed to set up a “loss and damage fund” to compensate the nations most affected by global warming. Again, diplomats provided few details, leaving the world’s poorest countries even more exasperated.

The good news is that the

International Energy Agency said in its 2023 World Energy Outlook that countries and companies will invest $1.7 trillion into clean energy, including nuclear power, this year. But these figures must triple by 2030 to keep the goals of the Paris climate agreement alive. Meanwhile, the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change said emerging nations require new infrastructure — between $160 billion and $340 billion by 2030 and $315 billion and $565 billion by 2050.

The aim of the Paris agreement is climate neutrality by 2050 — to ensure that emissions and removals offset each other. Is this doable?

Tropical rainforests are critical assets, which have offset 9 gigatons of carbon dioxide between 2005 and today. These reductions are available to countries, corporations and consumers as credits so the rainforest nations don’t cut down their trees. But they aren’t in high demand, devaluing the credits — worth far less than timber or agriculture.

But not all of the credits are alike.

The voluntary carbon market is embattled and hammered for exaggerating the trees it saves. However, the United Nations has scrutinized and verified an emerging financial vehicle — assets issued by host countries called “sovereign carbon credits.” Critically, that ensures that the money gets distributed to the rainforest nations preserving trees.

For example, Kenya wants to be among the first nations to sell sovereign credits, following Belize, Gabon and Honduras. But getting to that point is an exhaustive process that many countries think will pay off.

Others are worn down and may settle for easy money. Papua New Guinea said it won’t attend COP28 in Dubai because of broken financial promises and the shortage of funds to save rainforests. That lingering paradox will probably impede carbon neutrality goals, raising the heat index at this year’s climate conference in Bonn.

Ken Silverstein has covered energy and the environment for 25 years. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.

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Courage still leaves legacy commenTary

By Robert C. Koehler

Special to The Enterprise

There’s a crucial, overlooked aspect of Daniel Ellsberg’s legacy that’s very much worth saluting, you might say: his transformation from a believer in the Vietnam war to a horrified opponent of it, ready to risk prison time to bring classified truth about its pointlessness into public awareness.

Ellsberg, who died on June 16 at age 92, had been part of the military-industrial establishment in the 1960s — a smart young man working as a Pentagon consultant at the Rand Corporation think tank. In the mid-’60s he wound up spending two years in Vietnam, on a mission for the State Department to study counterinsurgency. He traveled through most of the country — witnessing not simply the war up close but Vietnam itself, and the people who lived there.

A few things became obvious. Despite then-President Richard Nixon’s commitment to “winning” the war — and continuing America’s tradition of greatness — “there was no prospect of progress of any kind,” Ellsberg told the Guardian, “so the war should not be continued.”

Beyond that realization was something even more significant:

“... Vietnam became very real to me and the people dying became real and I had Vietnamese friends. It occurs to me I don’t know of anyone of my level or higher — any deputy assistant secretary, any assistant secretary, any cabinet secretary — who had a Vietnamese friend. In fact, most of them had never met a Vietnamese.”

The war was no longer an abstraction to Ellsberg. It was hell visited upon humanity. It cut him to his soul. Now what? He continued his work. As of 1969, he had 7,000 pages of documents in his safe — a study of the tumult in Vietnam from 1945, when it was still a French colony, to 1967 — which indicated that president after president after president knew the war was absurd and unwinnable, but kept on

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“pursuing U.S. interests” there, at extraordinary cost to the Vietnamese people, who didn’t matter at all.

Finally he decided to act. He had met young people willing to go to prison in defiance of the draft. He knew he couldn’t simply shrug his shoulders and continue on with his career. He spent eight months secretly copying his document trove, eventually releasing the papers to the New York Times and, ultimately, 19 papers in all, which defied Nixon’s orders that the contents were a national security risk and must not be published.

The war continued anyway, but public outrage, both within and outside the military, gradually prevailed and the U.S. pulled out, abandoning the carnage it had created and putting the consequences out of its mind. After all, the military-industrial establishment had its own wound — a.k.a., “Vietnam syndrome,” public disgust at stupid and brutal wars — it needed to overcome, which of course it eventually did.

All of which leads me back to Daniel Ellsberg’s legacy. I think it wasn’t simply the Pentagon Papers themselves — and the lies they revealed — but also Ellsberg’s transformation: his awareness that the harm the war was doing, the innocent people it was killing, the unending hell it was creating, mattered. “Vietnam became very real to me.”

In other words, war is not an abstraction — a strategic game played by experts, with winning being the entirely of what matters. This truth sits in the collective human soul. It continues to resonate.

Indeed, the legacies of the Vietnam war — and the war itself — have not ended. War means the right to murder ... an entire country. Consider, for instance, the U.S. war crime initially labeled Operation Hades, which eventually morphed into the happysounding Operation Ranch Hand.

As the War Legacies

Project reports: “Between 1961 and 1971, the U.S. sprayed 12 million gallons of Dioxin-contaminated Agent Orange and 8 million gallons of other herbicides on Vietnam and large areas of both avowedly neutral Laos and Cambodia.”

The U.S. Air Force flew 20,000 herbicide missions over the country with the intention of defoliating hardwood tropical forests, plantations, mangroves, brush lands and other areas of woody vegetation:

“About 25 million acres of dense tropical forests in South Vietnam, an area approximately the size of the state of Kentucky. The program’s official objective was to deploy tactical code-named ‘Rainbow herbicides’ that could denude this tropical-agricultural landscape, which provided cover and subsistence for counterinsurgency forces.”

War strategy prevails! Would such ecocide — a word birthed by U.S. actions in Vietnam — have been justified even if the war were “winnable”? Obviously not. Denuded tropical forests, terrifying birth defects; welcome to the realities that war-wagers choose not to notice.

And then, of course, there are the unexploded shells and land mines strewn across the country’s landscape, blowing people’s arms off, killing children. As Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh pointed out earlier this year, these munitions have killed more than 40,000 people and injured 60,000 since 1975. Can we let this reality sink in?

This is the ongoing legacy of dehumanization, without which war would be impossible to wage. As one vet described what his training taught him: “The enemy is not a human being. He has no mother or father, no sister or brother.”

No, he’s just in the way. The whole planet’s in the way.

Robert Koehler (koehlercw@gmail.com), syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a Chicago award-winning journalist and editor. He is the author of Courage Grows Strong at the Wound

Editors’ choice for web comment of the week

“There are no questions to be answered except possibly whether he was taking some illicit drugs during the time. Even if he were, it would have been willful and no excuse.”

From Michael Hilber

Climate diplomats lose cool over broken promises commenTary

Fuel up for summer fun

Dietitianapproved, family-friendly recipes

Special to The Enterprise Summer sun brings an abundance of outdoor activities from jumping in the pool and playing in the yard to simply lounging in the shade. Making the most of those warm weather moments with loved ones means maximizing your time and fueling up for adventure with easy, kid-friendly recipes the whole family can enjoy.

From favorite snacks to homemade lunches, flavorful dishes that are quick to make using nutritious fruits and veggies can help keep your family ready for whatever summer brings.

Dietitian-approved recipes like Peanut Butter and Jelly Sweet potato Taquitos and Easy Homemade Salsa offer better-for-you summer solutions with healthy ingredients like sweet potatoes, blueberries, raspberries, sweet onions, Roma tomatoes and more.

Ready in less than 30 minutes, these taquitos let you enjoy the convenient benefits of cooking with an air fryer, including:

n Healthier cooking: Requiring little to no oil, air frying is a healthier alternative to deep frying.

n Timesaving: Air fryers can cook foods faster than traditional methods and typically with less cleanup.

n Versatility: From vegetables and meats to desserts or reheating leftovers, air fryers can cook a variety of foods.

“Get into the kitchen together as a family and get cooking,” said Julie Lopez, registered dietitian and culinary nutrition chef. “Cooking together can help kids build selfconfidence and lay down the foundation for healthy eating habits.”

While shopping for your family’s preferred ingredients, remember to look for the Produce for Kids and Healthy Family Project logos next to favorite items in the produce department, as adding these flavorful fruits and veggies to your cart can help make a difference in your community.

Visit HealthyFamilyProject.com to find more summer recipe inspiration.

— Family Features

Peanut Butter and Jelly Sweet Potato Taquitos

Recipe courtesy of Tracy Shaw on behalf of Healthy Family Project

Prep time: 5 minutes

Cook time: 20 minutes

Servings: 8

Ingredients:

1 cup sweet potatoes, peeled and diced small

nonstick olive oil spray

½ cup peanut butter, preferred nut butter or nutfree butter

8 small, low-carb flour tortillas

1 cup blueberries, washed and dried

1 cup raspberries, washed and dried

Putting it together: Preheat air fryer to 400 degrees.

Add diced sweet potatoes to air fryer basket and lightly spray with olive oil spray. Cook sweet potatoes 10 minutes, shaking basket 1-2 times to toss sweet potatoes. Transfer cooked sweet

potatoes to medium bowl; add peanut butter and mix well.

Lay tortillas on counter and place 1-2 tablespoons sweet potato mixture on each tortilla.

Add blueberries and raspberries next to sweet potato mixture.

Roll each tortilla tightly. Place rolled tortillas, seam sides down, in air fryer. Spray tortillas lightly with olive oil spray.

Cook in air fryer 6-7 minutes.

Easy Homemade Salsa.

Easy Homemade Salsa

Recipe courtesy of Healthy Family Project

Cook time: 10 minutes

Servings: 6

Ingredients:

½ small RealSweet sweet onion, halved

5 mini sweet peppers, seeded and quartered

3 Roma tomatoes, quartered

1½ limes, juice only

¼ cup fresh cilantro

1½ teaspoons garlic salt, or to taste

tortilla chips

Putting it together: In food processor, blend onion, peppers, tomatoes, lime juice, cilantro and garlic salt until desired consistency is reached. Serve with tortilla chips.

Local legend, retires after 30-year career

By Heather Sleuter

Special to The Enterprise

Sue Lomax embodies hope and love for children and is a leader in Yolo County early childhood education. Having helped countless children and families over her nearly 30-year career, Sue joined the Yolo Crisis Nursery staff in 2019 and has been a wonderful part of our team. In addition to her vast expertise in the developmental needs of children ages birth to 5, Sue has a special way to bring the really hard days into light and make us all smile.

Sue’s ability to understand the trauma children have experienced and help them to learn how to express their feelings and behaviors in a more positive way is remarkable.

Sue’s talents lie not only with the children she helps but also the many childhood development professionals she mentors. Yolo County is a better place for

Yolo Crisis NurserY

children to grow up in as a result of Sue Lomax’s work and guidance.

“Sue is like a mother to the youth of Yolo County,” said Jennifer Thayer, president of Yolo Crisis Nursery. “Her love for working with children is immense.”

Sue delights in all children. She believes every child’s behavior is telling us something. Aggressive or bad behavior is not personal, it is just the only tool a child may have to express themselves. Our job is to see the behavior as information to better inform us on how to help a child. Sue loves to work with children to understand them and help them break out of a negative experience by developing the skills to take charge of how they feel and act.

In honor of Sue’s mother and mentor, Pamela, she

and her family founded Pama’s Shoe Closet in her mother’s memory. Sue’s mother believed every child should have a new pair of shoes. Pama’s Shoe Closet is dedicated to making sure every child can experience the joy of a new pair of shoes. Pama’s Shoe Closet is now a permanent

DHS alum joins federal program

Special to The Enterprise

Davis High grad Maria Voss, a graduate student at San Diego State University, will participate in the U.S. Department of State’s Critical Language Scholarship Program to study Arabic during summer 2023.

Maria is one of approximately 500 competitively selected American students at U.S. colleges and universities who received a CLS award in 2023.

The CLS Program is part of a U.S. government effort to increase the number of Americans studying critical foreign languages. CLS scholars gain language and cultural skills that enable them to contribute to U.S. economic competitiveness

Name Droppers

and national security. The CLS Program provides opportunities to U.S. undergraduate and graduate students to spend eight to ten weeks studying one of 14 critical languages: Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bangla, Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Swahili, Turkish or Urdu. The program includes intensive language instruction and cultural enrichment experiences to promote rapid language gains.

The CLS Program partners with universities and nonprofits around the globe to provide cohorts of U.S. students an opportunity to

study the language and culture in a country/location where the target language is commonly spoken. The CLS Program also provides beginnerlevel virtual instruction for Arabic, Chinese, and Russian for competitively selected U.S. undergraduate students whose home campuses do not offer these languages. CLS scholars are expected to continue their language study beyond the scholarship and apply their critical language skills in their future careers.

— Do you know of someone who has won an award or accomplished something noteworthy? Email it to newsroom@davisenterprise.net.

part of the Yolo Crisis Nursery. We are honored that Sue chose the Nursery to house an Pama’s Shoe Closet, an organization so dear to her heart, in perpetuity.

Sue Lomax is retiring as the Yolo Crisis Nursery Assistant Director, but she

has held numerous positions throughout Yolo County including ones with Communicare Health Centers, Head Start, and Yolo County Office of Education.

“Sue led Child Development and Family services at CommuniCare Health

Centers for over nine years, paving the way for innovative and child-centered approaches and services, said Sara Gavin LMFT, LPCC, Chief Behavioral Health Officer, CommuniCare Health Centers. “Sue has set the standard for all of us by modeling relentless commitment to children. Every family and community deserves a Sue Lomax.”

Sue has made our community stronger by helping thousands of children and families. At the Nursery, we will miss Sue’s compassion, smile, and sense of humor. Sue we will not say goodbye, only see you soon!

If you would like to make a donation to help a child in honor of Sue, you may do so at www.yolocrisisnursery.org/give and note that your donation is in honor of Sue Lomax.

— Heather Sleuter is the executive director of Yolo Crisis Nursery.

CourtesY photo

Yolo Crisis Nursery Assistant Director, Sue Lomax will retire after a career of helping local children and families.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Sweet Potato Taquitos.

By Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman

Stephan Pastis

Ambitious Sudoku 1

Complete the grids so that

"Rodgers + Hammerstein's

Cinderella"

@ 2pm / $65-$95

UC Davis Health Pavilion, 1419 H Street, Sacramento

Michelle Musial

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O'Neill @ The Avid Reader @ 6:30pm

Join us to celebrate local author Fal‐

lon O'Neill's newest novel, Geist: Allegro. This event will take place on Thurs‐day June 29 from 6:307:30pm at our Downtown Davis store - 617 2nd Street. The Avid Reader Bookstore, 617 2nd Street, Davis. hello@avidreader books.com, 530-758-4040

Matt Jaffe @ 7pm Martuni's, 4 Valencia St, San Fran‐cisco

Sal's Greenhouse: Dumpstaphunk at The Independent @ 7:30pm The Independent, 628 Divisadero St, San Francisco

Brolly @ 8pm The Starlet Room, 2708 J St, Sacramento

Jimmy Earll & Friends Comedy Tour @ 8pm / $10.13 Punch Line Sacramento, 2100 Ar‐den Way, Suite 225, Sacramento

Severe Thrill @ 8pm Blondies' Bar, 540 Valencia St, San Francisco

The Dates @ 8:30pm Bottom Of the Hill, 1233 17th St, San Francisco

The Attic @ 8:45pm Boom Boom Room, 1601 Fillmore St, San Francisco

Ride Into The Music

@ 4pm / $69-$169 Ride Into The Music Festival Fol‐som featuring Chris Lane, Tyler Rich, Canaan Smith and Moon‐shine Crazy! THE FIELD, Lakeside Way, Folsom. events@goodvibezp resents.com

Kenya Moses Music

@ 5pm Lyon & Swan, 140 Columbus Ave, San Francisco

Book

Signing with George Elrod @ 5:30pm

In his book "It's Not All

Bad: A Lighter Look at Viet Nam" author George Elrod shares his often-humor‐ous experiences as a draftee. Many books de‐pict horror, but he focuses on laughter for healing.

Steady Eddy's Coffee House, 5 East Main Street, Winters

Jefferson Bergey Music:

Belle Cora-SF @ 6:30pm Belle Cora, 565 Green St, San Fran‐cisco

Women in Jazz & World Music Graduating Concert June 30th, 2023

@ 7pm / Free-$300

Women in Jazz and World Music

Present their Celebratory Graduat‐ing Concert with High School Stu‐dents Ages 15 – 18 Years who

Completed the Month Long Vocal Course. Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th Street, San Francisco. michelleljacques3660@gmail.com, 415-399-9554

"Late Nite Catechism"

@ 7:30pm / $25.50-$61

Lesher Center for the Arts - Hof‐mann Theater, 1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek

"Sweeney Todd: the De‐mon Barber of Fleet Street" @ 7:30pm / $11

Jean Henderson Performing Arts, 607 Pena Dr., Davis

"Predictor" @ 8pm / $20 Capital Stage, 2215 J Street, Sacramento

DangerAte @ 8pm Neck Of the Woods, 406 Clement St, San Francisco

Lil Flower Nasti @ 8pm Neck Of the Woods, 406 Clement St, San Francisco

Arty w/ Morgan Page

@ 10pm Temple Nightclub - SF, 540 Howard Street, San Francisco

Sat 7/01

His Eminence Kyabje Kalu Rinpoche Teaches Niguma Yoga in San Francisco @ 9:30am / $350

Jul 1st - Jul 3rd

His Eminence Kyabje Kalu Rin‐poche teaches Niguma Yoga in San Francisco from July 1st through

July 3rd, 2023 at Congregation Sherith Israel, Bart Hall Congrega‐tion Sherith Israel, Bart Hall, 2266 California Street, San Francisco. bil lvoigt@me.com

Fillmore Jazz Festival 2023

@ 10am Jul 1st - Jul 2nd

The largest free Jazz Festival on the West Coast, The Fillmore Jazz Festival, returns to San Francisco the weekend of July 1-2, 2023. Fill‐more Street, San Francisco. info@ artyhoodsf.com, 415-654-2717 San Francisco Fourth of July Bar Crawl

@ 4pm / $15

Get ready to party at the Of�cial Fourth of July Pub Crawl in San Francisco. Mayes Oyster House, 1233 Polk Street, San Francisco. info@crawlsf.com, 415-852-1027

JourneyDay Music @ 7pm Andaz Napa - A Concept By Hyatt, 1450 1st St, Napa

Doctor, Doctor @ 7pm The Hotel Utah Saloon, 500

Comedy Club, 915 Colum‐

Bar, 3160 16th St, San Francisco

Gal Pal @ 8:30pm Bottom Of the Hill, 1233 17th St, San Francisco Chokecherry @ 8:30pm Bottom Of the Hill, 1233 17th St, San Francisco

MInecraft Coding East Sacramento Camp for Phoebe Hearst Elementary @ 9am / Free Jul 3rd - Jul 7th

First United Methodist Church, 2100 J St, Sacramento. 916-4197644

Early Engineers Natomas Camp at Witter Ranch Elementary @ 9am / Free Jul 3rd - Jul 7th

Witter Ranch Elementary, 3790

Poppy Hill Way,

Friday Jul 7th

"Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street" @ 7:30pm / $11 Jean Henderson Performing Arts, 607 Pena Dr., Davis Sweeney Todd is Stephen Sondheim’s chilling, heartpounding masterpiece of murderous “barber-ism” and culinary crime. It tells the infamous tale of the unjustly exiled barber who returns to 19th-century London seeking revenge against the lecherous judge who framed him. Featur‐ing a lush, complex musical score, with clever and memorable songs such as “The Worst Pies in London,” “Johanna,” “Not While I’m Around,” “City on Fire” and “Pretty Women.” Sweeney Todd is a show — and a man — you won’t soon forget!

Mama Said: Fourth of July

Celebration | City of American Canyon @ 5pm Community Park II American Canyon, Donaldson & Benton Way, American Canyon

July 4th on Mare IslandThe Spirit Ship Cele‐bration @ 5:30pm / $10 Join us for a family-friendly "edutaining" event featur‐ing a Drone Sky Show, Drone Soccer Exhibitions, Live Music, Food Trucks, Beer, Wine & More! Mare Island Waterfront - Coal Sheds, 860 Nimitz Avenue, Vallejo. generalinquiries@ mareislandco.com, 707278-8377

Benny Bassett @ 6pm Grille 29, 1075 California Blvd, Napa

Cat, 400 Eddy St, San Fran‐

cisco Talib Kweli @ 8pm / $29.50 The Independent, 628 Divisadero St, San Francisco Anna St. Louis @ 8pm The Chapel, 777 Valencia St, San Francisco

Kiki Yeung Presents: Sweet and Sour Chicks @ 8pm / $22.25 Cobb's Comedy Club, 915 Colum‐bus Avenue, San Francisco

The Ateliers @ 8pm The Golden Bear, 2326 K St, Sacra‐

mento

Trianna Feruza: GTRI AT THE BOOM BOOM ROOM @ 9pm Boom Boom Room, 1601 Fillmore St, San Francisco

Sky Ferreira @ 9pm The Regency Ballroom, 1290 Sut‐ter Street, San Francisco

JourneyDay Music @ 5pm Be Bubbly Napa Valley, 1407 2nd St, Napa

China‐town Dragon: An immersive cultural experience with kungfu, circus, magic, music, and more @ 7pm / $35

Jul 7th - Aug 20th

Elkka @ 9pm 1015 Folsom, 1015 Folsom St, San Francisco Interplanetary Criminal @ 9pm 1015 Folsom, 1015 Folsom St, San Francisco BIT @ 9:30pm DNA Lounge, 375 11th St, San Francisco

Folsom Firecracker Race @ 7:45am / $20-$33 145 Parkshore Dr., Folsom

Stone Foxes @ 4pm Community Park, 203 E 14th St, Davis

Fourth of July Pub Crawl & Hot Dog Eating Contest @ 4pm / $15 The best way to celebrate Inde‐

Join us for a magical ad‐venture through China‐town as we search for the elusive Chinatown Dragon! This one-of-a-kind perfor‐mance captivates audi‐ences of all ages Great Star Theater, 636 Jackson Street, San Francisco. management@great startheater.org, 415-7354159

VIVA LA SOLTERÍA ? ¡Baila, Canta, Comparte! 18+ @ 7pm / $15 Ace of Spades, 1417 R St., Sacra‐mento

Keyon Harrold @ 7:30pm Black Cat, 400 Eddy St, San Fran‐

cisco "Predictor" @ 8pm / $20 Capital Stage, 2215 J Street, Sacramento Secret Improv

Athletics’ name should remain in Oakland

Emptying out the notebook at baseball’s midpoint.

n This year’s All-Star Game is July 11 and will be played at T-Mobile Park in Seattle.

Every Major League Baseball team, no matter how good or bad, must be represented with at least one player.

For the San Francisco Giants, the most likely candidates are second baseman Thairo Estrada and lights-out closer Camilo Doval.

The Oakland A’s best bets are starting pitcher JP Sears and/or outfielder Esteury Ruiz.

n Has it really been 16 years since Barry Bonds played for San Francisco?

n The essence of baseball: “Hitting is timing. Pitching is disrupting timing.”

n Sure looked strange the other evening seeing long-ago Giant Matt Williams wearing a San Diego Padres uniform. He’s now a coach on manager Bob Melvin’s staff.

n Speaking of Melvin, he is one of the mildest-mannered managers in the game. So, too, is Bruce Bochy, now managing the Texas Rangers.

Each was ejected from a game this week on a similar tag play at the plate.

In each instance, baseball is having a

difficult time interpreting its own rules. Runners approaching home plate must have a clear route to the plate.

Catchers may not block the plate and must be standing in fair territory to take either a relay throw or a long toss from the outfield.

The replay review from New York overruled the home plate umpire’s call on the field.

Melvin and Bochy each received an early shower.

n Is there anything Peyton Manning won’t endorse?

The former Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos quarterback is currently pushing baked beans and Subway sandwiches.

n New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers was quoted this week as saying psilocybin, a mood-altering, mental health drug, should be legalized.

TIMES: Build a bigger stadium

From Page B1

looking at schools like UC Davis, Montana, Montana State, North Dakota State, South Dakota State and maybe even that stellar state university across the Causeway.

Attendance is down sharply at North Dakota State. Win a couple of national championships and fans pack the stands.

But win dozens of national championships and fans get bored.

They want a new challenge. They’re tired of watching the Bison pummel Southern Illinois and

Northern Iowa. The oddly named FCS (Football Championship Subdivision, formerly known as I-AA) is shrinking. James Madison is not only gone, but thriving magnificently at the next level.

Sam Houston is also gone. More will follow as realignment marches on.

San Diego State, Boise State, Fresno State and many others once played in a lower division, too.

But the time came for them to move up. For heaven’s sake, Nevada used to play in the Far Western

Conference with the California Aggies.

It won’t be easy and it can’t happen overnight.

You’ll need a bigger stadium, more booster support, even some serious NIL money to throw around to show recruits you mean business.

But it never hurts to give such a major move a serious look.

Indeed, the times they are a-changin.’

— Contact Bob Dunning at bdunning@davisenterprise.net.

Maybe now the football fans in Green Bay, Rodgers’s former team, have an answer for some of the statements he has made over the course of his career.

n Peripatetic Larry Brown, he of many addresses, is rumored to be joining the University of Washington basketball coaching staff.

Now 82, Brown is the only coach in history to win both an NCAA title (Kansas, 1988) and NBA title (Detroit Pistons, 2004).

n Best media job ever: TV weather person. Even if the forecast is wildly off-base, you chalk it up to a “change in atmospheric pressure” and march onward.

*Congratulations to Sheldon High football who can play running back, linebacker and defensive back in Scott Nixon. He is one of only 79 scholar-athletes from around the country honored for excellence on the field, in the classroom and in the community.

Nixon had a 4.15 GPA, was a two-year team captain and all-state selection, four years on the honor roll and Sac-Hi Sports scholar-athlete selection.

Each of the 79 “2023 Team of Distinction” members will be recognized in a permanent digital display at the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta, Ga.

n The A’s have already made it known that the team will play the 2024 season in Oakland, as that is when the team’s lease with the Oakland Coliseum runs out.

However, at such time as the franchise does move to Las Vegas (not a done deal), it needs to leave the A’s name, logos, mascots and colors (green & gold) behind.

Those should be preserved for an Oakland expansion team. MLB has said it wants to expand and Oakland should be foremost on the list. Ironclad Bay Area ownership willing to spend money is a must. There is precedent for this. When the original Cleveland Browns fled to Baltimore and became the Ravens, any and all things Browns were stored for the new Cleveland franchise. Same thing needs to happen in Oakland.

n Fare thee well, Bob Hyde. You impacted lives too numerous to be totaled in every endeavor you undertook. You are missed, now and forever.

The longtime radio and television color man on UC Davis football broadcasts, Doug Kelly is director of communications for Battlefields2Ballfields and managing general partner of Kelly & Associates. Contact him at DKelly1416@ aol.com.

AGGIE: Incredible resilience

From Page B1

West Conference First Team and Big West Conference All-Freshman Team while winning six Freshman of the Week awards — including five consecutive weeks.She was the first in program history to make the all-conference first team as a freshman.

Then on Dec. 4, 2017, what White had been feeling as back pain was diagnosed as non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

White underwent chemotherapy treatment from January to April of 2018 and after entering remission, she redshirted the 2018 season.

White returned for the 2019 season and ranked eighth in the Big West in kills per set and in her first match back since her diagnosis, tied the school’s single-match hitting percentage mark.

She was named All-Big West Conference First Team in 2019 and to the 2019 Big West Conference All-Academic Team.

After the 2020 season was halted due to the pandemic, White faced another hardship as she suffered a torn ACL in 2021.

But White showed resilience once again, graduating from UCD.

By Nellie Fly

ost ants build their homes or nests underground. They dig tunnels and rooms. The extra dirt is carried outside and forms a hill around the entrance.

Underground ant nests contain many different rooms with different functions. There is a

room where the queen lays eggs. A team of worker ants cares for the queen, her ant larva and the cocoons.

nt nests also have special rooms to store food, a nursery for young ants and resting rooms for worker ants.

When an ant finds a large piece of food, it returns to the nest and enlists other worker ants to help carry the food. On the way back to the nest, the ant leaves a trail of odors as landmarks, so that it can find its way back to the food.

Your mission is to combat the Evil Power Master who has reportedly allied with the Ant People. Are your missing group members playing a prank, or have the Ant People taken them prisoner?

Unscramble the title of this book. Then, check it out at your local library this summer!

Planet of the Ants

According to the National Pest Management Association, the world harbors 12,000 species of ants. Look through the newspaper and find four or more numbers that add up to exactly 12,000.

12,000.

Ask a friend to give you each type of word. Fill in the blanks and read the story aloud for some silly fun.

Ambrose Ant

Unlike most ants, Ambrose Ant had a terrible sense of direction.

Instead of following the trail to picnics, he often wound up in _____________. All the ants following him would have to ________ through __________ bowls of ________________.

The Queen of the ants became very __________. She declared that Ambrose could never leave the ____________ anthill.

nest lick compost

Oops! Leafcutter ants removed some words from this article. Draw a line to where each word belongs.

rainforest cutting

feed

pieces don’t grow

Leafcutter ants live in the and collect leaves by first them into small pieces using their sharp, pointed jaws. They carry the back to their nest, holding them high above their heads.

Standards Link: Life Science: Living organisms have distinct structures and body systems that serve special functions in growth, survival and reproduction.

Unfortunately, on his way to the food storeroom, Ambrose took a wrong turn, went through a _____________ tunnel, and ended up in ________________. He lives there today, where he enjoys going for a __________, munching on _____________, and working as a tour guide.

Jobs We Share

Workers in ant colonies have a variety of different jobs. Many of these are similar to jobs people have. Look through the newspaper to find people that do the following ant colony jobs:

Surprisingly, they eat the leaves. Instead, they use them to food! Back at the , smaller worker ants the leaves clean and cut them into tiny pieces. These are then chewed up and made into miniature heaps to grow the fungus on which they . Standards

All the ________ bugs agree that the _________ thing about one of Ambrose’s tours is that they’re always a surprise—you never know WHERE you’ll go!

Standards Link: Grammar: Identify nouns, verbs, adjectives and interjections in reading.

letters in the word ANTS in each vertical and horizontal row. Each letter should only be used once in each row. Some spaces have been filled in for you.

The noun fungus means a type of plant life (such as molds, mushrooms, mildews) that grow on decaying matter.

Leafcutter ants grow fungus gardens underground.

Try to use the word fungus in a sentence today when talking with your friends and family members.

Imagine the ants are going on vacation. Where will they go? What will they do? What will they pack?